In "Spheres," a captivating board game experience awaits as players step into the roles of shoguns competing for supremacy. Strategize, negotiate, and maneuver across the game board to expand your spheres of influence, vying to be recognized as the paramount leader of the shogunate by Japanese society. With every move, the fate of your empire hangs in the balance—will you outwit your opponent and claim victory, or succumb to defeat?
Setup
Each player has 4 peasant stones in each square, and 1 shogun stone in the rectangle. Each player must choose 5 out of seven special ability stones and placing them in their preferred positions based on personal tactics. Players can only use the abilities they selected at the start of the game. This creates variety in the gameplay and a need for players to adapt to various combinations and competing strategies.
Objective
The game ends when both shoguns are captured. If there are still pieces on the board, the players have to say: “The government is gone, retreat!”. Whichever player has more points is the winner. Peasant stones are worth 1 point, Shogun stones are 15 points, ‘Hime’ (princess) stones are 15 points, monk stones are 0 points; geisha, ghost, merchant, sensei stones value 2 points, samurai stones value 5 points.
Stones’ abilities
Peasants: are scattered clockwise or counterclockwise, don’t have any special ability
Scholar: Can skip a square/rectangle.
Merchant: Can jump across to the other side of the board.
Monk: Can be placed anywhere in the limit of 3 squares.
Geisha (hostess): Can be placed like a peasant stone or the player can decide to move her directly to the next shogun in the direction that the player is going in that turn.
Ghost: Can move to any empty square/rectangle but after that empty square/rectangle, there must be a square/rectangle with stones.
Thief: Can be played like a peasant stone. At the end, the player can use the thief ability to steal points from your opponent by rolling the dice. The maximum he can steal is 11 points and the minimum is 3 points. However, just like a thief there is a risk involved; if the player rolls a double, the points are subtracted from their score and given to the opponent! Overall, there is an 83% chance that the thief will steal something from the opponent, but if they fail, they lose more than they started with.
Samurai (warrior): His special ability is patrolling. The player can change the direction when scattering.
Hime (princess): Can be scattered like a peasant stone. Her value increases to 30 (double) when she is in the same rectangle as a shogun.
Shogun: Stays in his rectangle and cannot be scattered. Shoguns can only be taken if are alone, when there are other stones with shogun then he is protected, the player can only take those stones.
The special abilities of the stones can only be used if they are on your side of the board.
Scattering
The first player takes up all the pieces of any district square on their side of the board and distributes one piece per square, starting at the next square in either clockwise or counterclockwise. The player can decide whenever they want to use an ability stone when they are distributing the stones. When all pieces are distributed, the player’s reaction is determined by the situation.
If the following square is a square with pieces in it, the player must keep scattering (no matter whether the pieces are on your side or the opponent’s side) and in the direction he/she was going. The player cannot use the stones’ abilities if they are placed on his/her opponent’s side.
If the the following square is empty, and the next square/rectangle has stones in it (regardless of whether it is a normal square or a shogun rectangle), the player can leap over the empty square and take all of the contents in that square/rectangle. (Player cannot leap over an empty rectangle)
The contents are taken out of the board immediately to count points at the end.
After taking stones, the player’s turn ends.
If all 5 squares on the player’s side are empty, he/she must use any 5 of the stones that he/she has to distribute 1 in each square. The player can decide where the special ability stones are distributed, the player must decide whether he/she should keep the special stones or sacrifice them for better stones. After having any 1 stone in each square, continue scattering like normal. If the player doesn’t have enough stones to distribute, he/she can borrow from his/her opponent and must subtract the points of the borrowed stones at the end of the game.
The game continues until both shoguns are captured. After the last shogun is taken, each player takes all the stones on their side and starts counting the points they have based on the stones’ value.
There are many possibilities so the player can come up with their own strategy. Or scattering to take as much stones as they can immediately or scattering to have many stones in one square/rectangle and calculate to take it later.
Ordain rule: When there is a square that has 1 peasant stone, the player can ordain that stone to one of the special ability stones that he/she had taken. The player can only ordain if he/she has special ability stone and can only ordain 1 time each turn. After ordaining, the player plays like normal.
Shogun rule: If a player captures a shogun prematurely in the first 3 turns, the player will be imprisoned on their next turn (player skips a turn).
